Beauty like it's 1999

Even the air smelled different back in the Nineties: thick with the androgynous scent of Calvin Klein’s ubiquitous CK One. No surprise really, given 20 bottles were sold every minute at its peak in 1995. It was a time when most of us were rushing to Toni & Guy to get our hair chopped into ‘Rachel’-style layers or jealously admiring our friends who had already taken the plunge, all the while debating the merits of scrunchies and supermodels as MTV blasted in the background.

Fast-forward two decades and fashion and beauty are having a Nineties moment once more. Hedi Slimane’s entire autumn/winter 2013 collection for Saint Laurent Paris was inspired by grunge, with Courtney Love – a poster girl for the Nineties movement if ever there was one – fronting the label’s new campaign. Another current beauty muse is the fictional character Lelaina Pierce, portrayed by Winona Ryder in 1994’s Reality Bites: all mulberry lips, feathered hair and a whole lot of angst. And who can forget My So-Called Life’s Angela Chase (brought to life by Claire Danes), whose hair was the quintessential Nineties shade of grape. It’s not only Saint Laurent Paris tapping into this era: the look on Chloé’s catwalk was also strongly influenced by Britain’s Nineties women. “We referenced Northern girls growing up in the Nineties on a night out; tough but beautiful,” said Anthony Turner who styled hair into a simple low ponytail at the show. Very Appleton sisters.

Those who came of age in this era will be either feeling swamped in nostalgia (spice lip-liner and frosted eyeshadow, anyone?) and keen to recreate these looks now or recoiling in fear at re-imagining Ginger Spice blonde streaks, over-plucked brows and crispy, overly gelled curls. We say embrace the former: the new Nineties looks are tempered by a prettier, cleaner, altogether more wearable aesthetic, with the decade that ‘done’ forgot now being remembered in the form of wet-look hair, matte lips, grown-out fringes and worn-in smoky eyes. And for those that missed out on an inspiring beauty decade altogether, here are the looks it’s OK to get newly acquainted with...